The overall, long-term objective of this project is to analyze a French region's fertility patterns in the second half of the nineteenth century. The region is at once an exception to the general French pattern of early fertility decline, and a classic example of the European pattern of late nineteenth-century fertility decline. The aims, then, are to contribute to an understanding of the modern decline of fertility in Europe and, indirectly, to help explain the early decline of fertility in France. A great deal of work towards this long-term goal has already been accomplished. The present request seeks funding to complete the study. Specifically I wish to obtain more information on the region's family structure, occupational structure (including the incidence of female and child employment), and social structure; on the customs, values, and attitudes which made up the region's traditional culture; on economic conditions in the region during the 1870's and 1880's; and on popular responses to those economic conditions and to changes in child labor patterns produced by national reform legislation. With the aid of this new information I plan to complete a study built around multivariate analyses of the region's fertility patterns in two periods (c. 1861 and c.1896) and of fertility changes between the two periods.